


Free-Fall

by Airmid



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Season/Series 10, Stolen Angelic Grace (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25013158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Airmid/pseuds/Airmid
Summary: Knowing this grace stolen for him to live to see Dean cured would run the same course as the last, Castiel travels as far as he can go to see if at the end of the earth he could know his final want.
Relationships: Castiel/Crowley (Supernatural)
Kudos: 20





	Free-Fall

* * *

Little was here, long ago burned away before the movement of the earth shifted this land to something colder, harsher than even the hottest summer days this planet had had. Now it was just a flat expanse of cold, flat and hard, with frost still clutching at the few things that dared attempt to grow. It would get warmer but never hot for as long as things held like this. But everything was always moving, drifting and colliding and reshaping and perhaps in another million years, this place would know summer or be under ice.

It was hard to tell and he had never been good at predictions.

He was kneeling, his borrowed flesh feeling more worn down as the grace burned out hot and painful. Death had visited him enough times to know it intimately and this was dying. The way an angel burned out but slowed, drop by drop, the terrible punishment for his unspeakable crime.

He dropped a lit match into the bowl in front of him and heard the soft sigh a moment later.

“What angel? And where the hell are we?”

Castiel looked up, seeing the demon and knowing this was the last time. Always annoyed, hand shoved into his front slack pocket. He had a black silk suit on today, a dark purple shirt open at the collar, hair being blown in the harsh wind of the landscape. Beneath that, beneath the flesh that housed him, he could see the demon, the cracks in his demonic form that had grown but had always been there. Glowing and shifting under all the darkness.

They were both anomalies of their kind, an angel with true free will, and a demon who had always kept slivers of humanity.

“You didn’t even do this properly, no trap, no protection,” the demon was saying looking down at him with a glint in his eyes. “I could kill you, with you all limp and draining out right here in this nightmare. I could –“

“So kill me, Crowley,” Castiel said, curious at the surprised look on the demon’s face before those sharp eyes narrowed.

“What kind of game are we up to here? Like to know the rules before we start the dance.”

“I’m asking you why you have not killed me yet. I am not playing a game.”

Crowley was looking closer at him now, he knew the demon was trying to see his grace, to see how badly it burned and sputtered inside him. Wanting to see if this was a mercy killing which it would be but that was not the point of this exercise. At least not quite yet.

“How in holy hell did you, with the mobility of a penguin in free fall, get out here?”

Castiel tilted his head, wondered at the deflection as it was meaningless how he got to this spot on earth. What mattered was this moment right now and he could see the demon shifting uneasily, trying to find the point where the string snapped and he was trapped.

“I drove until there was no more road and then I walked.”

There was another sigh, Crowley tilting his head back to squint up into the sky with both his hands now in his slack pockets. There was still tension in him, running deep before a small head shake.

“Do your pets know where you are? Squirrel will go nuttier then he already is if you die without bothering to tell him –“

“He does not want me there. Sam pities me but it is in their eyes. I am only alive beside them due to memories of better times.” Castiel slid his hands to his knees, dimly aware of the frost melting and seeping into the fabric of his slacks. Those sensations would become worse over time as he and this vessel died together.

“Is this some kind of intricate death by demon plot to get the Winchester’s to finish me?” Crowley asked and then let out an exasperated huff as Castiel tilted his head trying to understand what was so hard about answering one question. “You forget I did shoot you and gutted you taking out that tablet.”

“Why not just kill me and rip it from my dead flesh? Or finish me once it was in your hands?” he answered, seeing a slight grimace there, and he shrugged slightly. “Besides you were still angry at my betrayal even after all that time.”

“I should have bloody expected you would always follow those two. Always bled for them, sometimes to death – like now.”

“You were jealous. You still are.”

There was a real flash of anger in the demon’s face as he crouched down, still a ways away. “What do you want, Castiel?” he hissed.

“You.”

“I’m sorry but is your brain so scrambled that we could serve it with a side and call it breakfast? You are aware of what we are, the whole opposing sides, fighting to the death, oil and water, right?”

“It’s the answer that’s true,” Castiel said, shifting as the cold was making itself known more, this body aching. His hands slid slightly on the fabric as he tried to get more comfortable. Crowley was still crouched, wary and unbelieving.

“I’m going to take you back to those two flannel-clad nightmares so they can adjust your medication because obviously, your dosage is way too low.”

“It bothers you that I’m dying,” he said and heard that same low hissing noise as Crowley rocked back and was standing again, real rage clouding his face.

“Don’t you dare, angel.” To Castiel it sounded more like _how could you be this cruel_ and he summoned his blade, grace aching at the effort. “See, trap. Always the same with you. You always were as treacherous as a demon.”

“Not this time.”

Castiel held the blade in both his hands and then rolled it across the flat ground where it hit against Crowley’s shoe before coming to a stop. Raising his head to bare his neck he stared up at the pale sky, never really lit to its full extent here as though it too was frosted over like the earth beneath him. This last thing he wanted, he was not surprised it was denied but in the end, it had been worth the try before his death. Just to know.

A rustle of fabric, the sound of a footfall and he let his eyes slip closed as the demon came near. The weight of a hand threading through his hair and he prepared himself for death, the final one he hoped.

The taste of sulfur was against his mouth and it was a moment before he realized it fully, opening to it and letting the demon in. Insistent lips and tongue against his own, claiming him, the mixing of hell’s sharp edges and heaven’s dying light. It was bliss in a way he never thought imaginable as he caught his hand in the demon’s hair, his other hand tangled in black silk cloth. He could feel Crowley’s other hand against his back, a fist that pressed his blade flat against him.

Finally, his mouth was released and he opened his eyes to see Crowley’s amused expression though his eyes, his real ones, told a different story. Castiel admired the demon’s restraint even if he wanted it broken.

“Come on. Taking you back to those two mooks.”

“But –“

“You’ll regret this. Probably not in the morning,” he said with a smirk. “But when they get your grace back, and they will because they always figure out some eleventh-hour half-assed impossible plan, you’ll regret it. Back to singing on a cloud fully harped.”

“I don’t want to go back.”

Those words were soft and there was a hint of surprise in the way the demon’s mouth twitched. Fingers brushed his cheek before resting on his lips, wet and he realized he had been crying before he opened his mouth and slide them in with a slight head movement, relishing the taste of both the body and the demon. Crowley made a soft sound before his composure returned and he withdrew his hand.

“Besides you taste like flowers,” the demon complained helping him up, his knees aching in this dying body.

“As though sulfur and whiskey are somehow more desirable,” he returned before feeling that mouth again, the body pressed against him and then they were moving. There were sounds of the Winchester’s yelling, a lurching motion and he was in the backseat of their car, the weight of his blade inside his coat pocket, and Crowley was speaking, words regarding better angel management and babysitting. He could see the oldest look startled at the message, some hidden meaning he could not pick up before Crowley disappeared.

Dean turned his eyes to him but there was no disappointment, just amusement, and a raised eyebrow.

“Something you want to share with the class, Cas?”

He could feel Sam’s confusion and knew it would dawn on him soon but he shook his head, letting his eyes slip closed. There was a momentary thought that he could look disarrayed. He decided he was too weary to care.

“I just need rest.”

“Sure,” Dean said unconvinced in a way that promised many questions later and he could feel the car move forward again.

He licked his lips, relishing the taste of whiskey and hell still on them and leaned against the door, feeling not quite so empty.


End file.
